“நிலாவே வா செல்லாதே வா” – Mouna Ragam’s Heartbeat
About the song “Nilaave Vaa”
From Mouna Ragam (1986), Ilaiyaraaja’s melody weaves Vaali’s lyrics into S.P. Balasubrahmanyam’s velvet ache. The lover stands beneath a fractured sky, begging the moon—his beloved—to stay. Her absence is a splintered monsoon dream: tides breaking, heavens cracking. His soul is a splintered monsoon dream—torn between truth and mirage. The song is a veena-strung storm—where golden-hour devotion battles eternal night and he reminds her that no bloom rooted in earth refuses spring’s call—just as he cannot resist her.
Oh Moon, I beg—stay! This splintered monsoon dream—
I blaze through your dusk and dawn, endless, a fevered stream.
Your leaving breaks the tide and cracks the sky’s last seam…
I’ll weave you in my breath—to a shroud where silk memories breathe.
Moon, stay! Heaven’s shore drowns where your light falters.
Kaveri’s holy waters—or parched earth’s mirage in my palm?
Girl, speak truth! Before this thirst chars my soul to ash.
Thorns that flay my skin—or jasmine’s moonlit balm?
Wait! Declare—which wound will bloom?
Your child-soul, dew-fresh… how could your words cut so deep?
This clay-heart shattered—its echoes bleed where love should sleep.
Oh! Nectar-tongue, how could your honeyed syllables spill malign?
Each word a thorned bloom… staining where my silence thaws.
Moon, stay! Heaven’s shore drowns where your light falters.
In the flower’s paradise, where northern breezes dance and sing—
Can any bloom rooted in earth… refuse to unfurl its spring?
One glance, my honey—just one—and night becomes a thousand-petaled dawn?
One word, my wild deer… let forests grow where silence yawned.
What cloud could break the sky’s vast shoulder, my dear?
Only your monsoon sigh—a storm disguised as strings.
Moon, stay! Heaven’s shore drowns where your light falters.
“நிலாவே வா, செல்லாதே வா…”
Caseta Caelum 